-Chapter 3-
Leni cried for hours that night before finally crying herself to sleep. Periodically, nurses would come to check on her. Aside from exhaustion, she was recovering nicely—nicely enough to be discharged the next afternoon. She was kindly given a set of clothes, taken off the painkiller, and had just enough time to get in the car before the effects started to wear off. Her original numbness faded away to be replaced by rapidly increasing levels of pain. By the time the two sisters pulled into the driveway, Leni was nearly crippled. Even the simplest of tasks, such as breathing, had become a struggle.
She leaned heavily on Lori to stay upright while she retrained herself from limping or falling to her knees. She took a quick rest before standing by herself and letting Lori open the door. Neither of them announced their arrival—Leni could barely breathe let alone shout—and Lori hurried her sister up the stairs. It took far longer than usual but thankfully their parents and other siblings weren't home from work or school yet. But they would be back soon and they couldn't see Leni right now, not with her looking like this. Lori told her she didn't look that bad but she looked horrendous. Definitely something worth questioning.
When the two did finally reach their shared room, Lori helped Leni onto her bed. She only covered her up from the waist down, that way her legs would stay warm and it wouldn't be as hard to get her back out of bed for food and bathroom breaks. She was in too much pain to sleep, but she also couldn't move. The best Lori could do was give her an ice pack. She expected it to go straight on the stab wounds but when Leni put it squarely on her stomach…Lori had to wonder how much more her sister had actually gone through… Her focus thus far had been on the stab wounds but now her concern widened in range and only grew stronger. She wanted to be comforted herself, she wanted to be told Leni was fine or wake up to find this was some sick nightmare. But Leni herself wouldn't tell her honestly that she was fine.
Beaten. Raped. Stabbed. Poisoned.
That was all to be kept secret from eleven other people who all lived here. And keeping it a secret from Lisa and her parents would be no easy task since she was so upset herself. She had to remind herself that Leni was going through something much worse right now, and would probably tell them when she was ready.
Leni tried to rest but it only had to be twenty or thirty minutes before the front door slammed open followed by the endless chattering of her nine other siblings. Even with her door closed, the noise still rang in her ears. Lori made no effort to calm them down to avoid suspicion, and never once mentioned Leni. With eleven kids, having one or two absent was easy to overlook for a long period of time. For now Leni could rest, as long as nobody said her name, but in time someone would notice that the family was one member short. Once that happened, the resting period would turn into a reclusive period. If she could stay in her room long enough to heal then once she could bear moving around on her own, with or without pain, she could return to her normal routine with minimal questioning. Then she could fully recover without anyone knowing anything.
The only problem was, in order to pull this off, she would require a lot of help from Lori, and possibly another person. She wanted as absolutely few people as possible to know what happened last night. Even if she did want them to know, how exactly would one approach such a topic? Being straightforward with it didn't seem like a good idea. Waiting too late could be just as bad with a, "Why didn't you ever tell us?!" scenario, and she wasn't sure if she could handle someone being angry with her over this. Right now her siblings and parents were happily talking/shouting amongst themselves, and she couldn't just ruin that. She also didn't know how to ease into telling anyone anything. The only reason she was okay-ish with Lori knowing was because she was found and technically saved by her sister. Had Lori not come searching for her she probably would've died back there.
Even now Lori continued to help her. She was keeping her a secret as best she could, as promised. Lori could be selfish at times but when a family member was in need, Leni knew she would be there. She also knew she couldn't ask Lori to tell anyone for her. It could and probably would backfire, making her feel even more ashamed than she already was—she didn't even have the courage to tell her family face to face, and she doubted they would think highly of that.
For a very brief moment she considered a note or text, but dismissed that, too. It still wasn't face to face and a note/text actually sounded worse than having someone else deliver the news. And her parents seeing that? As if their daughter hadn't done enough already, getting herself into so much trouble, now she would just leave them a piece of paper.
…Explaining what? Even if she chose to leave a note/text, what would it say? That she followed some strange person away from the road, in the dark, which pretty much cloaked her? That she wouldn't fight hard enough to get away? That a cloth was all it took to bring her down? And then, finally, the climax of her story, that even though she woke up multiple times, she still didn't fight or run?
It was hard to be more disappointing than that. No matter what she did, her family—parents in particular—would hate it. Her father always lectured them, always talked about how he wanted his daughters to "stay pure", and she just…wasn't. If he knew, he would be so furious with her for ignoring him. Her mother likely wouldn't be much different. And her siblings—the ones old enough to understand, anyway—what would they think? Sure there was Lori but she also had a closer relationship with Lori. That said, the playing field wasn't as even as everyone thought.
Maybe she would think of something but for now, she had other battles. Keeping away from her family—minus Lori—and enduring agony on her side, stomach, and between her legs were priorities she only wished she could ignore. On the plus side, at least there were only two tasks. On the downside, they were both very hard.
She felt something wet slowly spreading on her side. She looked to find a red liquid begin to thicken more and more through the gauze wrapped around her abdomen, making it and her shirt soggy and uncomfortable. All the movement probably caused the wounds to reopen and start bleeding again, so much that the gauze couldn't soak it all up. As much as she wanted to yell for Lori, or try to anyway, she knew it would bring attention to herself. But she couldn't get out of bed… Moving around even more would only cause more bleeding and all things considered, she didn't need the extra blood loss. Come to think of it, she couldn't yell even if she tried… Her body didn't seem to like that idea. Even her breaths had become short and rapid.
She moved a hand to place over the gauze but her arm hit the bruise on her stomach and she cringed. And maybe it was for the best that she didn't touch it anyway… It would hurt beyond words if she put any pressure on it.
She could only wait for Lori to come back. During that time she tried to distract herself by listening or breathing, or trying to hone in on what her siblings were saying—she at least wanted to keep up with their lives. But it only worked for a few seconds before the intense, pulsing ache drew her focus and made the wait that much longer.
Finally Lori did return, apologizing for taking so long and explaining that Lynn had received an ankle injury playing soccer, and that everyone had become very absorbed by that so she had to as well. Leni could bear the thought of herself hurting more than Lynn hurting and wished she could go see her. Thankfully Lori also added that it was a minor injury. She never actually said what it was though.
"Anyway, how are you?" Lori asked after she was done with her story.
Leni glanced at the blood coming through the gauze and shirt and Lori followed her gaze.
Her sister jumped, as though ready to panic, but took a deep breath and said somewhat calmly, "I'll go get some things to help that. Stay right there."
Right. Because she was just bursting with energy. Setting aside sarcasm, she nodded her head and played the waiting game again. Their mother had a medicine cabinet in which many medical supplies were stored. It was downstairs in a little closet. It held a lot of bandages, gauze, rubbing alcohol, etc.
Lori returned with an armful of gauze, medical tape, and a red hand towel. She helped Leni sit up and take her shirt off. She slowly peeled off the gauze, exposing for the first time freshly opened, stitched, bleeding wounds. Two were parallel to each other going horizontally and the third looked more like a wide, diagonal slash starting from her lower ribs and ending just above her hip. It was the shallowest of the three but also the longest. She heard Lori gag at the sight.
"This might hurt, is that okay?" Lori asked.
Still not quite in the mood to talk, Leni simply nodded.
Her sister began wrapping her up again. It hurt even worse than when Lori was taking it off and she tried to choke down all the groans, hisses, and pained squeaks she wanted to make. She wanted to act fine for Lori but tears started to fall and her already-shallow breathing became irregular.
"I know, I know. I'm really sorry, Leni… I'm trying to be as gentle as I can," Lori apologized, as though she had anything to apologize for.
Leni shook her head and croaked, "It's okay."
But she saw a look of sorrow on her sister's face. Saying it was okay didn't mean anything when the pain had brought her to tears and Lori knew it.
"I'm sorry to make you do this," Leni added.
Lori shook her head as she folded the hand towel in half.
"You're not making me do anything," she said. "Now this might hurt a little more. I'm almost done though, I promise."
Lori pressed the hand towel against the wounds and Leni immediately grabbed her pillow. She buried her face into it to muffle the scream Lori was already halfway expecting.
Lori bit her lip and flinched.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she frantically chanted.
Lori tried to finish quickly, using the medical tape to hold the towel in place while Leni kept her head in her pillow to cry silently.
"I'm all done now. The towel should help soak up any extra blood," Lori said after a minute.
Leni sniffled and lifted her head to peek at the towel. Her side started a whole new circle of pain—stinging, aching, stinging, aching, and so on and so forth.
"Do you want to keep sitting up or do you want to lay back down?" Lori asked her.
She wasn't partial to changing the position of her body right now. It would stretch her skin and in turn, cause more pain and potentially more bleeding.
"I'll just sit up for a while," she answered.
"Do you want anything to eat or drink?"
She shook her head.
"Okay. Then let me just…" Lori took her pillow and propped it up behind her. "There. In case you want to lean back."
She cracked a smile of gratitude. "Thanks, Lori."
"If you need anything, just send me a text, okay?"
Leni nodded and quietly watched her sister walk out of the room, sliding behind the door and leaving her alone in an empty room. Her breathing had evened out now that her wounds were all fixed up again. The pain was draining though, and she could feel it sapping her energy. Unlike before, she didn't really want to stay awake… The only things to fight now were pain and exhaustion, neither of which she could run from. Normally sleeping upright wasn't comfortable but in this case, she would be uncomfortable no matter how she slept. She could only try to sleep.
But if she did sleep, it couldn't have been for very long.
"Knock knock," a voice called from outside her door.
She mustered nearly everything she had to sound completely awake and full of energy. "Who is it?"
"Kiwi." Luan.
She decided to play into it. "Kiwi who?"
"Come downstairs."
"Why?"
"Kiwi want to see you!" Luan laughed. "And it's dinnertime."
"I'm—" She faltered for a moment. "I'm not hungry."
When no answer came, she assumed Luan had left upon indirectly telling her to come for dinner. Maybe if she could stay quiet, they wouldn't notice that she'd stayed in her room. And if they did, hopefully Lori would be able to cover for her, although she didn't quite see that being possible. Then again, Lori did manage to cover everything so far… She chose to have a little faith in her sister despite the odds starting to stack against her.
She looked down at the towel to see if it had caught any new blood and wondered if there was a reason her sister chose a red one. Like, say, maybe to hide the blood…? Lori obviously didn't want to have to bear the sight of it. And it made sense, being as she was found severely injured with blood all over her body, and she couldn't imagine what the grass below her must've looked like. Seeing the stab wounds again and more blood coming from them could cause Lori to have flashbacks of that horrifying scene.
Leni was thankful to not know what she'd looked like. She already saw—and felt—the aftermath. The last thing she wanted was to have yet another disturbing memory of…well, everything. Despite being vague blurs at some points, she still held those memories. Since they were vague, hopefully one day she would forget them.
Just as she was about to doze off again, there came another knock on her door. She wasn't very willing to talk with so much pain but she really didn't have a choice… While it was true she could be overlooked in an absence, with twelve other people in the same residence, there were bound to be a hundred conversations a day, even if they were short. Just because she needed to rest more than anything right now did not make her an exception, even with Lori.
If her breathing was normal she would've sighed very heavily.
"Who is it?" she asked, though not without difficulty.
"It's Luna. Can I come in?"
"No!" she yelped. "I mean…I'm like, not feeling well. You might get sick."
Half of that was truthful but the lying part of it only made her feel guilty. Hiding herself in her room was one thing but lying to everyone was a different story.
"Oh. You want something to eat then?"
One of the unfortunate parts of talking to Luna was that she knew what rape was and the way she looked, it was pretty clear to her older siblings. That she was a girl automatically gave away what happened. Since Luna wasn't much younger than her anyway, Leni couldn't pass it off as a costume. She couldn't pass it off as anything but the truth…
"I'm not hungry," Leni answered. "You guys eat without me."
"Okay, sis. Hope you feel better soon. Call us if you need anything."
Luna or Luan would probably come back to check on her if Lori didn't, especially since Luna would be telling the rest of the family. …So it was kind of like…lying to the whole family… Or worse, making Luna lie for her…
She bit her lip and the guilt grew. Maybe she could tell them the truth one day. Maybe. She couldn't really see it happening right now but…
She shook the thought from her head and winced as the distraction wore off. Having Luna ask to come in her room had been a bit of a scare but at least it took her focus off the pain. Now that Luna was gone… Ow.
She tried to take slower, deeper breaths to see if somehow, that would ease the pain, even if it was just by a little. But just like the rest of her luck so far, it didn't work and actually made it worse. Covered or not, she could feel her skin stretching around the stab wounds and the stitches pulling to keep them closed. It seemed like even the slightest of movements would cause this kind of suffering. She resolved to stay as still as she could for as long as she could. And hopefully, with her being so "sick", people would stay out of her room. Maybe as how she was doing and would be forced to speak, but other than that, she would be able to get some rest without constantly being interrupted by someone.
Eventually dinner was over and everyone began the nightly routine of more noisy, chaotic, Loud-style hustling and bustling. In a weird way it was calming and she wished she could join in. She wanted to be a part of her siblings' lives, if only at night.
In perfect timing, Lana's lizard Izzy wriggled under her door and scurried under the nightstand.
"Izzy!" Lana shouted. "Come back!"
"Don't come in!" she shouted back when she heard the doorknob start to turn.
The doorknob stopped moving and a different voice pushed Lana aside, mumbling something behind the door. It cracked open—
"No, like, don't come in!"
—and Lori slid through. Inwardly, she sighed deeply in relief.
Lori looked around for a bit before spying Izzy's scaly tail poking out from under the nightstand.
"Did you find him?" Lana asked from the other side.
Lori kneeled down and swiftly grabbed the lizard's tail. She stood up and dropped him in Lana's cupped hands.
"Make sure he stays out of my room, Lana!" she growled, probably more in defense of Leni than in the actual lizard situation.
"You got it, sis. Come on, Izzy…" Lana's voice faded into the background of electric guitars, laughter, and an unknown object repeatedly banging against a wall.
"Leni, how are you doing?" Lori asked.
Honestly…just being up this long was enough to wear her out. Then there was Luan and Luna to keep her from getting one moment's rest. And finally, right when she thought she was in the clear, Lana's little lizard picked her room—of all seven bedrooms upstairs—to come crawling into. Obviously that drew Lana in like a moth to a flame.
Her answer was a humble shrug.